


unlock me (with a major key)

by Anonymous



Category: Naruto
Genre: Action, Alcohol, Alternate Universe - 1920s, F/F, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Mafia AU, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 03:21:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29075523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: New York, New York.Sakura is a good girl turned assassin-for-hire. Kakashi is the ruler of the alcohol black market. Sasuke is the son of the Uchiha family's boss. Three melodies that fit into the same genre—and one more that doesn't seem to mesh at all: Naruto, the grieving pianist who's been kidnapped to play at Kakashi's birthday party.But as it turns out, it's the most discordant melody that pulls all the rest together and makes music.
Relationships: Haruno Sakura & Hatake Kakashi & Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura/Yamanaka Ino, Hyuuga Neji & Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10
Collections: Five Figure Fanwork Exchange 2020





	unlock me (with a major key)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OfHeroesAndCrooks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OfHeroesAndCrooks/gifts).



** Sakura **

Sakura’s father often lamented the fact that he didn’t have a son with whom to go fishing in the summer or hunting in the winter. They were the quintessential upper middle class family, after all—Kizashi was an engineer who worked for Ford Motor Company, and his wife Mebuki was a typist who’d quit years ago to focus on her duties as a mother. Their daughter Sakura was an excellent student, and she was so demure and well-behaved that her parents received endless compliments from neighbors and coworkers for raising such a lovely girl. All that was missing from an ideal American life was a strong son to help support the family, glare at any boys who looked Sakura’s way, and of course go hunting with Kizashi.

“If only,” Kizashi sighed for the thousandth time as he finished his early morning breakfast. He was about to head out to the forest, but both of his hunting buddies had run into some unexpected business at the last minute, so he was alone. “If only I had a son to go with me...”

“Father?”

p

Kizashi looked up to see his daughter standing in the doorway to the kitchen, peering blearily at him with her stuffed rabbit still in her hand. “Sakura,” he said in surprise. It was only five in the morning, a good two hours or so before she was expected to get out of bed. “What are you doing up? Did I wake you?”

“No, I woke up by myself,” Sakura answered with all the seriousness of a nine-year-old girl. “I want to go with you.”

“Go with me?” Kizashi was astonished. “You can’t mean—you can’t mean that you want to go _hunting_ with me?”

“That’s exactly what I mean,” Sakura said. Her large green eyes peered determinedly at him. “Kiba says he goes hunting with his pa all the time.”

Kizashi shook his head, huffing a laugh. “Sakura, that’s because Kiba is a boy. Little girls don’t go hunting with their fathers. I mean, it’s not like you can wear a dress out there!”

Sakura frowned. “Then I’ll wear pants,” she said stubbornly.

“You don’t have any pants,” Kizashi pointed out. “What gave you this crazy idea, Sakura?”

“It’s not crazy,” Sakura protested. “You always complain about how you don’t have a son to go hunting with. But you have a daughter. So why can’t I go hunting with you instead?”

“There’s a whole book of reasons!” Kizashi said, but his mind was whirling. It was true that he’d never heard of little girls going hunting, and the very concept of it sounded like lunacy. But now that he thought about it, was there really any reason Sakura couldn’t go with him? She had arms and legs and eyes, didn’t she, all working as well as a boy’s? And they could easily get her a pair of good sturdy pants at the store... “You said your classmate Kiba goes hunting all the time?”

“ _All_ the time,” Sakura said.

“Hmm.” So nine years old wasn’t too young. And speaking of age, the real differences between boys and girls didn’t start until later, did they? They were still children now, and it was much less strange, Kizashi thought, for a girl to do a boy’s activity than for a woman to do a man’s job. Imagine Mebuki as an engineer! He laughed aloud.

“Father?”

Mind made, Kizashi stood up from the kitchen table and beamed at his daughter. “Come on, Sakura. We need to go buy you some pants.”

Sakura stared uncomprehendingly at him for a moment before her eyes lit up. “Really? Yes!” She jumped up and down and rushed over to hug him around the waist. “Thank you, thank you!”

Warmth bloomed in Kizashi’s chest as he chuckled and patted her head. He didn’t need a son after all.

Under Kizashi’s tutelage, Sakura quickly picked up the basics of hunting. No one even gave them any funny looks, simply assuming that she was a boy and proving Kizashi’s theory that young boys and girls were not so dissimilar at this age. As season after season passed in the woods of southern Michigan, Sakura’s skill with the hunting rifle rose. She even convinced her father to bring her to shooting ranges during the off-season months so she wouldn’t lose her edge.

Soon war came to the world, but Kizashi was too old to be drafted, and thoughts of bombs and trenches seemed ever so far away. How could anyone think of such things while surrounded by fresh air, yellowing leaves, and wind that carried only bird calls and the rustle of darting game?

The war ended, and Sakura grew older. Twelve years old, then thirteen, then sixteen, and Kizashi still could not bear to tell her it was time she stop engaging in a “boy’s activity”. Mebuki had been against it from the start, arguing that hunting was far too violent and strenuous for a sensitive young girl like their daughter—but she didn’t see how much Sakura loved it. Only Kizashi saw the quiet excitement thrumming through her body as they sat waiting amongst the trees. Only he saw the gleam in her green eyes as she lined up a shot. Only he saw the sheer exhilaration and pride she exuded after a successful kill. Sakura had come to love hunting as much as Kizashi did, and he couldn’t bring himself to take it away from her.

Either way, he never got the chance. When Sakura was sixteen years old, Kizashi died of something the physician called Bright’s disease: a painful end that could be only delayed, no matter what medicines or treatments were tried.

Sakura did not go hunting that autumn.

A year passed after Kizashi’s death, and Mebuki decided that they would go to New York City to find her brother, who was her last living relative in the States. Sakura had never left Michigan in her entire life, but on August 10th, 1922, she packed up all of her belongings and boarded a train heading towards the East Coast. The compartment was cramped and the ride was rough, but they disembarked in New York late the next day no worse for wear.

Mebuki’s brother met them at the station, and they took up residence in his apartment’s tiny second bedroom. Mebuki began searching for work as a typist, insisting that her skills had not completely atrophied since she quit seventeen years earlier to raise Sakura. There were numerous companies looking for typists—especially female ones, whom they could pay lower wages—so Mebuki was confident that she would soon be hired. And she was. Life went on, and day by day, mother and daughter waded through the sucking sands of grief and tried to heal.

They almost succeeded.

It was a late November evening, after the sun had set behind the city’s skyscrapers. Mebuki had missed the subway after work that day, so she was returning home at a later hour than usual. Sakura had gotten a call from her mother through her uncle’s telephone, and now she sat against the wall of the apartment building, looking down the street in the direction from which her mother would come. The gas streetlamps cast yellowish pools of light on the ground.

She had been waiting for half an hour when she heard it. Distant sounds like something or someone scuffling, in the direction Sakura was looking. She stood and peered curiously down the street, trying to spot the source of the noise. Then—a scream. And even muffled, one that sounded chillingly familiar.

“No,” Sakura breathed. She took off towards the noise.

The scuffling sounds continued as Sakura drew closer to the alleyway from which they emanated, but horribly, there were no more screams. She hoped and prayed with all her might that she was wrong about the voice she had heard shrieking in fear.

“Someone’s coming!”

“Let’s get out of here.”

Sakura rounded the corner just in time to see two men darting away from her down the alley. There were no streetlamps in the alleyway and she couldn’t make out any of the men’s features, but the identity of the figure sprawled on the ground was unmistakable.

“No!” Sakura cried. She threw herself down next to her prone mother, searching frantically for signs that she was still alive. As she scrabbled to find a pulse, she noticed that the pearl necklace Mebuki had been wearing this morning was gone. _Robbers!_ Sakura didn’t care for the revelation as she failed again and again to find a pulse. “No, no, no—”

She looked up sharply in the direction the men had run. In a few seconds, they had neared the end of the long alleyway and were skidding around the corner. The emotions that had been trembling in wait, barely restrained by the hope that everything could still be okay—now, they swelled like a hot, furious tide in Sakura’s chest, and she could hardly withhold a scream of rage. Those—those—those utter _bastards!_

They had taken her mother from her. Mebuki was only person left in the entire world who loved and was loved by Sakura, and in only a few sordid minutes those men had murdered her and left her bleeding out in a grimy alleyway. There were no words that could describe the agonizing grief and fury that tore through Sakura, so it was good that she didn’t need words. She needed action.

Teeth bared in a rictus of wrath, Sakura tore down the alleyway after the two men. Her calf-length skirt impeded her movement, so she hiked it up to her knees, the fabric whipping about as she ran. Her footsteps pounded against the pavement as if in time with her thrashing heart.

“I’ll kill you!” she shrieked. One of the two men was already falling behind the other when he nearly tripped over himself at her sudden cry. Sakura’s eyes locked on him. She followed the man through a dozen narrow, twisting alleys that she hadn’t known existed, a maze of wet asphalt and dappled lamplight. Only a minute had passed since Sakura saw her mother lying lifeless on the ground, but it seemed as if eons went by as she chased the man through the side streets of Brooklyn, every part of her body screaming for justice. Or for revenge. Or simply for that evil, disgusting bastard to _die!_

And then it was over.

Before she knew it, Sakura found herself nearly on top of the man she had been chasing. She reached out to grab at his jacket, but he whipped around and nearly stuck her with a knife. Sakura leapt to the side, and the blade only dragged a line along her upper arm. It barely registered through the storm of adrenaline in her veins. Unable to form coherent words, Sakura let out a keening cry as she tackled the man, one hand digging nails into his throat as the other pried the knife from his fist and slammed it into his shoulder. He howled.

“You bastard!” Sakura shouted in his face, voice cracking. His features were indistinguishable through the haze of tears and rage, but she wouldn’t have cared anyway.

“Get—off!” the man choked. Sakura’s head snapped to the side; he’d punched her in the face. She spit out blood.

“Fuck you,” she spat, almost surprised by her own uncharacteristic vulgarity. “Who’s the other one? What’s his name?”

“Get _off!_ ” The man tried to roll out from underneath her, but Sakura flung her hand out wildly and knocked the knife so that it wrenched in his shoulder.

He screamed and bucked, and Sakura yanked the knife out and stabbed it down again. Blood sprayed over her, and she gave a scream of her own as droplets splattered across her mouth. But that didn’t stop her from punching the man’s jaw like he’d done to her a moment ago. The blow felt good even as it stung her knuckles, and Sakura drove her fist into his face again and again. It was as if she was watching someone else beat the man bloody, the sensations of impacts and groans and smearing blood all slipping by in a red haze.

She remembered what she wanted from him—other than his death. “Tell me where the other man went!” she demanded, shaking him. “What’s his name?”

Blood dribbled from his split lip. “His—his name is Gozu!” the man blurted. His eyes were panicked and glassy as he stared up at her. “Gozu Akuma. It was his idea, all of it! I swear, I didn’t want it, I didn’t want to do it, believe me! I had to go along with him, please—”

 _Gozu Akuma._ “All right, shut up,” Sakura snarled.

“You have to let me go!” the man pleaded, before breaking off into a bout of painful cough. “Please—you’re going to let me go, aren’t you? It wasn’t my fau— _urgkh!_ ”

“SHUT UP!” Sakura smashed her fist into the man’s face again, snapping his head to the side. “How dare you? How _dare_ you say—it’s—” she punctuated each word with a blow, “—not—your—fucking—fault—” She let out a sob and clutched at her throbbing hand. “When you’re the reason my mother is _dead!_ ”

“Please—” the man whimpered, but could say no more.

“Go to hell,” Sakura gasped out. Tears slid down her face, trails of liquid warmth in the cool September air. She staggered to her feet and stomped on the handle of the knife for good measure. The man barely twitched.

As Sakura stumbled through the tangle of alleyways, somehow making her way back through the maze, she felt guilt and fear slowly rise up in her chest. Had she really just done that? Was that man dead by her hand?

Then she came to the alley where her mother had died, and Mebuki’s body was still lying there, wounds gaping. Blood spread around her as if it were only a scarlet-dyed cloak. The guilt vanished immediately, and Sakura was filled instead with renewed anger that leapt and snarled within her like a baying hound. She swore a promise, then, to herself and to her mother.

She would find that other man.

And she would kill him too.

* * *

New York was filled with people who could give you anything you wanted for the right price. Sakura saved up the money she had from her parents’ life insurance and paid a man to find Gozu Akuma. She ended up paying three men, because the first two were swindlers. The last, thankfully, knew his “beeswax” (as he assured her).

On the 6th of November, 1922, Sakura crouched on a rooftop in the city and used her father’s hunting rifle to shoot her mother’s killer. _Pop-pop._ Poetic justice. Staring at the limp huddle of clothing on the ground far below, Sakura felt something sick and hot well up in her chest. She found her vision blurring. She could hardly breathe. She did not know what she was feeling, only that it was almost more than she had ever felt before, and her heart staggered under the force of it all.

She had only taken one shaking breath in an attempt to calm herself before she turned and saw a woman standing there, less than ten yards away.

“I—” There was no time. Sans rifle, Sakura scrambled to her feet and dashed towards the door to the stairs, panicked tears pricking at her eyes. The world was a frantic blur. Every step made her feel as if she would stumble and fall, but miraculously she remained upright all the way to the rooftop door.

“Wait!” the woman called, running after her. Sakura chanced a glance over her shoulder as she yanked open the door and hurtled down the stairs. A glimpse of red lips, golden hair arranged in a fashionable bob. The woman did not look like the kind of woman who would readily chase a killer. “Come back!”

Sakura ignored the woman’s shouts, focusing on flinging herself down the stairs as fast as she could. She froze in sudden indecision at the door to the ground floor. Should she go out and escape into the street, where crowds would disguise her? Or should she continue down and find some back exit into an alleyway where no Samaritan bystander could help the woman catch her? Everything and nothing buzzed in her mind, and she could not think a single useful thought. The hesitation cost her, and the woman leapt down the last of the stairs between them and grabbed Sakura’s arm.

Sakura immediately tore her arm from the woman’s grasp and tried to shove her away. The woman sidestepped smoothly, leaving Sakura unbalanced. Before Sakura could react, she then stepped behind Sakura and pushed her against the wall, twisting her arms behind her back. She tried to wriggle away but the strain on her joints made her hiss in pain.

“Let me go!” she demanded, voice cracking. Her cheek squashed against the wall, she tried to blink back tears.

The woman sighed from behind. “I didn’t set out to do this, you know. You should have listened.”

“Why should I have?” Sakura snapped. It was difficult to sound suitably indignant with her face squashed against a wall, but she made a valiant effort.

“Well, why don’t I tell you? I’ll let you up, but you’ve got to swear you won’t try to run again.”

“Deal.” One that Sakura had no intention of following through on.

“All right...” The woman’s grip loosened, and the heat emanating from her body slowly faded as she moved away. Sakura bolted.

She made it three steps before the woman caught her again and this time she shoved Sakura against the wall. “You bearcat, you,” she admonished. “You shouldn’t go back on your word like that.”

Sakura scowled as fiercely as she could. “What do you want with me?”

“Will you actually listen this time?” The woman tugged at Sakura’s arm again as if in warning, making her wince painfully. “I can catch you a hundred times if that’s what it takes.”

“... Fine,” Sakura said. The hurricane of emotions that had overwhelmed her earlier were muted, as if it had been chased away by the panic of the chase, and now that that too had faded, there was nothing left but resignation and a hum of unease.

The woman let her up. Sakura whipped around to face her, rubbing her abused shoulder.

“My name is Ino Yamanaka,” the woman said, flashing a lovely smile. She was as beautiful and stylish as any film star on the silver screen, and Sakura wondered again what on earth someone like her was doing here. “It’s a pleasure.”

Sakura merely looked suspiciously at her.

“I’ll get to the point,” Yamanaka conceded. “I recognized that look on your face when you shot that man. Pain. Relief. And a bit of satisfaction. It was for revenge, wasn’t it?” Sakura remained silent, glaring. “So it was. We’re rather alike, you see. Look at us. We’re both young women who’ve taken it upon ourselves to kill the sick bastards who’ve wronged us, and we both did swell jobs of it.”

Despite herself, Sakura was intrigued by the revelation that the glamorous-looking Yamanaka had killed a man—if she wasn’t lying. “So?”

“I want to recruit you.”

“Wh— _what?_ ”

With blasé nonchalance, Yamanaka explained the contract killing operation that she planned to set up out of a 24-hour Brooklyn cafe. She herself was an expert in poison and other subtle methods of disposal, or so she claimed, and she painted the gruesome but strangely enthralling picture of Sakura mastering the other end of the spectrum. Bullets ripping through flesh. _Pop-pop._

“What do you say? I could use someone like you.”

“I—I can’t,” Sakura spluttered. “That’s illegal. That’s insane. You’re insane.”

“Am I?” Yamanaka smoothed her expensive coat. “Sweetheart, you’ve already killed a man in cold blood. I think we’re past legality by now.”

“But...”

“You’re a damn good shot, darling, and you can fire from a distance before anyone’s the wiser. People will pay for that.” Softening, Yamanaka asked, “What else are you going to do?”

“But...” Sakura still couldn’t think of anything to say. Would the woman even let her go if she refused?

Yamanaka’s blue-green eyes were intent as she reached out and lay her hand on Sakura’s arm—gently this time. “Do you have anyone left?” The question hung like droplets in the air. She released Sakura’s arm and held her hand out, a clear gesture of offer.

After a long moment of silence, Sakura took it. “Fine—I’ll hear you out, Yamanaka.”

A smile curved her crimson lips. “I’m glad. Call me Ino. And don’t you think it’s about time I know your name too, partner?”

“I’m not your partner yet,” she responded, mouth twitching into something halfway between a smile and a frown. “You can call me Sakura.”

“Oh, Sakura,” Ino sang. “We are going to be _rolling_ in dough.”

“Is contract killing really that lucrative?” Sakura asked, reeling slightly. The situation was sinking in. Two months ago, she’d been a normal young woman, albeit one with two or three more guns than girls usually had; now, she’d committed homicide and was about to join a criminal operation.

Ino smiled with teeth. “Only if you’re as good as we’ll be.”

* * *

** Naruto **

Naruto sat on the floor behind the bar, fiddling with a set of toy magnets and idly eavesdropping on a nearby conversation. The magnets had been a Christmas gift from Teuchi, the owner of the bar and the only reason Naruto was still alive. If not for Teuchi, who’d kindly let him sleep in the bar’s back room last winter, Naruto may have frozen to death. He suspected no one would have cared. With no records or relatives, it was as if Naruto had simply appeared one day into this sorry existence.

Business was slow that day, and the only patrons were two men sitting at the bar and complaining about money. In the corner, Teuchi’s daughter Ayame played a series of listless chords on the old grand piano. Teuchi emerged from the back room and paused in front of Naruto, smiling down at him.

“It doesn’t look very comfortable down there, son,” he commented. A flush rose on Naruto’s cheeks at the term of address, though he knew Teuchi called every boy ‘son’. The old man held out his hand. “Come on, I want to show you something.”

Naruto took his hand and stood up. “Show me what?” he asked eagerly.

“Come over here.” Teuchi walked towards the piano, Naruto hurrying after him.

“Hello, Naruto,” Ayame said with a smile. Naruto grinned bashfully in return. Ayame was always sweet to him, and she was very pretty.

“Ayame, dear, why don’t you teach Naruto a few scales on the piano?” Teuchi suggested. He gave Naruto a jovial clap on the shoulder. “Maybe in a year or so he’ll be as good as you.”

Naruto was staring at Teuchi, mouth agape and tears beading in his eyes. Teuchi was going to let _him_ play the piano? Him, a penniless street rat, play a beautiful (albeit rather worn) grand piano? He could hardly believe it.

“Of course!” Ayame said, giggling. “Naruto, you’ll be the star of Carnegie Hall in no time!”

Teuchi watched indulgently as Ayame tugged Naruto to sit on the wooden bench next to her. The poor boy almost seemed afraid to touch the piano, but Ayame cajoled him into setting his hand on the keys and tapping out a few awkward notes. Naruto’s confidence increased when it became clear that he wasn’t going to destroy the piano with a single misstep, and he diligently copied Ayame’s example, pressing the keys in order as she explained the corresponding letters. Teuchi smiled and returned to the bar.

Ayame taught Naruto to play chords, scales, arpeggios, to read notes, symbols, and Italian, to let his small fingers dance across the keys like raindrops bouncing against the surface of a puddle. By the time Naruto turned eight, he was playing little ditties on the piano for the evening crowd. When he wasn’t serving as entertainment, he still took every moment he had to practice his scales and arpeggios.

Time passed, and Naruto became a staple of the bar, a familiar blond figure sitting behind the piano in the corner and breathing music into the air. His fingers grew longer and he grew taller, but one thing that never changed was his love for the piano.

1923\. Spring. The snowy slush that coated New York’s streets melted more every day. Bright specks of green began to appear on tree branches throughout the city, and Central Park looked a breath away from coming back to life. The grey blanket of winter was receding.

Naruto sat in the corner of Teuchi’s bar, playing a lively round of jazz for the establishment’s completely sober patrons. It would be prudent to note that Teuchi had switched entirely to non-alcoholic drinks the moment Prohibition began. It turned out that grape juice was rather popular nowadays. Naruto finished off the song with an emphatic chord, grinning with the satisfaction of a piece well played.

“How old are you, lad?” A bar patron leaned against the piano, cigar dangling from his mouth as he looked appraisingly down at Naruto. He had come in with one of Teuchi’s longtime customers and friends, so he was probably decent.

“Seventeen, sir,” Naruto replied, starting up a more mellow song to fill the air while they talked. He tilted his head. “Or thereabouts. Why?”

The patron tapped his hat on the piano for emphasis. “Well! You’re pretty darn good. What do you say you come play at my little party next month?”

“Your party?” Naruto asked curiously.

“Just a little get-together. I’ll pay, of course,” he assured, smiling. “It’ll be about four hours or so, so how does... twenty dollars sound?”

Naruto’s pinky slipped onto a discordant key, and he gawked at the patron. “T-twenty dollars?” he spluttered.

“Ah—is that not enough?” He scratched his head, suddenly sheepish. “I’m not too sure how much one usually pays for this sort of thing.”

“It’s enough!” Naruto said quickly. _Twenty_ dollars! “When’s your party?”

The patron grinned in relief. “The third of April at seven o’clock,” he answered. “Can I expect you there?”

Naruto cast a quick glance over at Teuchi, who was shaking a drink behind the bar. Surely he wouldn’t mind? “Sure you can!” Naruto replied with excitement. He was going to get paid!

“Excellent! Hot jazz is all the rage these days, and you do as fine a job of it as I’ve ever seen. I’ll send a car for you on the third, but here’s my card. The name’s Genma Shiranui. You can call me Genma.” The man dropped an expensive-looking rectangle of paper on top of the piano. “Now, I’m off to get myself good and sozzled. On grape juice, of course.” He winked and sauntered away.

Naruto improvised to finish the song before its original ending and hurriedly picked up the business card.

_Genma Shiranui  
Operations  
123 456 7809  
42 Green Leaf St._

Naruto stared in happy disbelief at the card and scarcely resisted the urge to jump up and down in delight. After a few seconds, he slid the card carefully into his chest pocket and returned his hands to the keys. This called for the jauntiest of tunes!

When the third of April came around, Naruto waited eagerly outside the bar in the early evening air. He was dressed in his best shirt and pants, and he’d even borrowed a bowtie from Teuchi for the occasion. At ten before six, a handsome black car pulled up in front of him, and the driver stepped out.

“Mr. Uzumaki?” the driver asked dubiously.

“That’s me!” he replied, bouncing on his toes. He noted in consternation that the driver’s clothing seemed far finer than his own.

“Hm.” The driver opened the door and gestured for him to climb in. “Sir.”

“Thank you,” gasped Naruto, who had never had anyone open a car door for him before. Indeed, he could count on one hand the number of time he’d been inside a car at all. He clambered into the vehicle and gingerly lowered himself onto the fine leather seat.

“Please, make yourself comfortable,” the driver said, all traces of skepticism erased. “We will arrive in approximately forty minutes.”

Soon the car came to a stop in front of an enormous mansion, and the driver came around and opened the door for him. “Mr. Uzumaki, we have arrived.”

Wide-eyed, Naruto climbed out and stood awkwardly on the pavement. The driver tipped his hat and made to get back into the car.

“Wait!” Naruto called. The driver cocked his head. “Do I just... enter? Or...?”

“Someone will be out to retrieve you shortly, I’m sure.” The driver looked past Naruto. “Ah, Mr. Shiranui is here.”

“What?” Naruto turned around to see Genma coming down the front stairs. “Sir!”

“Didn’t I tell you to call me Genma?” he reminded teasingly as he came to a stop in front of Naruto, who noticed nervously that he was even more well-dressed than the chauffeur. He was beginning to feel glaringly out of place.

“Oh—sorry, Genma,” Naruto said, rubbing the back of his head.

“No worries, lad. Come on, best to get settled before the party begins.” He added to the driver, “Thank you, sir.”

“My pleasure.”

“Right!” Naruto followed Genma up the front stairs and into the mansion. His jaw dropped again when they entered the grand entrance hall.

Although he’d had the suspicion that this wasn’t one’s usual “little get-together” merely by seeing the mansion from the outside, Naruto was by no means prepared for the extravagance of the interior.

The hall was wide and marble-floored with intricately carved columns and a beautiful, glittering chandelier dripping from the high ceiling. Two grand staircases led up to the balcony of the second floor. There was additional open space beyond the entrance hall, although Naruto estimated wildly that the entrance hall alone could fit more than fifty guests without any having to spill over. The walls were hung with expensive-looking paintings, and around the room, tasteful ceramic vases bursted with flowers. Naruto’s eyes were drawn to the long table to one side, which was laden with towers and platters of exquisite hors d’oeuvre (though he didn’t know the word).

Genma chuckled when he noticed Naruto’s gaze. “Help yourself! There’s still near thirty minutes before the party officially begins, and most of my guests won’t begin to arrive until fifteen minutes after that. Some even later...” He trailed off, looking into the distance with an air of amused exasperation. “At any rate, you should get yourself acquainted with the piano—it’s through there, you can’t miss it. That one’s worth a few thousand dollars, so I’m certain you’ll be careful with it.”

 _A few thousand dollars?_ Naruto gulped and straightened up. “I will, sir, believe it!”

“Excellent!” Genma thumped him on the shoulder, beaming. “The guests are going to love you. The ones who notice, anyway—not many people have enough appreciation for the musicians behind the music. Well, I’m needed elsewhere. Best of luck!”

He strolled away, leaving Naruto standing alone in the middle of the grand entrance hall.

After a moment of looking about in a panic, Naruto hurried over to the refreshments table. Although he’d been given explicit permission by Genma to eat the food provided, he still swiped the fancy little things as surreptitiously as possible. After swallowing a good dozen canapes, he realized with horror that his fingers—his piano-playing fingers!—were now slick with grease and bits of seasoning. Naruto nearly began to panic once more, but he spotted a waiter nearby and worked up the courage to ask him where the nearest water tap was. A ritzy place like this had to have one, right? Thankfully, the waiter could indeed direct Naruto to the nearest lavatory, where he washed his hands before returning to the hall.

Not wanting to eat more food and get grease on his fingers again, Naruto hurried over to the grand piano that stood already in full bloom in the corner of the main hall. It was an imposing, polished sculpture that made the piano in Teuchi’s bar seem like a child’s toy block in comparison. The wood gleamed black. If Naruto had been afraid to lay his hands on Teuchi’s piano on that day ten years ago, then he was a hundred times more terrified to go within an arm’s length of this expensive beauty. But he was getting _paid_ to do this, so at great length he convinced himself to sit down on the leather-upholstered bench and put his fingers in place.

When he tested the waters with a simple D-major chord, he had to pause at the sheer sensation of the keys beneath his hands. They held a weight that made depressing them a luxurious tactile experience, each note ringing out with clear, rich fullness as the hammers struck the exposed golden strings. Naruto played a few more chords and then a cascading arpeggio, a breathless grin spreading across his face. He had thought this piano was beautiful before. Now, he could feel it and hear it in every note he played. Delighted, he improvised an energetic swing number and reveled in glorious resonance.

Naruto made more mistakes in two minutes than he’d made in the past year—the heaviness of the keys made it impossible for his fingers to flash across the board as lightly as he was accustomed to—but he cared not one whit. He finished the song and grew even more joyful at the full-bodied boldness of the ending chords. The pianists of Carnegie Hall probably used something on the same level as this one, Naruto thought. This was a piano for _performances!_

Genma’s voice spoke up from behind. “Having fun?”

In his excitement, Naruto forgotten that other people were in the hall with him. He jumped up to face Genma, a brilliant grin splitting his face. “Yes! By God, yes!”

* * *

After that night, requests began to stream in. The wealthy socialites who made up Genma’s circle were interested in the young orphan boy whose fingers flew like light across the keys and whose cheerful smile never left his face. At least a few times a month, he would find himself at a rural mansion or an upscale townhouse or a banquet hall, and as time passed he played more and more. Genma bought him a suit so crisp and expensive that made Naruto embarrassed to have ever worn his “best shirt and pants”.

At a party just like any other, Naruto met a gregarious trumpet player who taught him to belt out a few short ditties on the instrument. Naruto was intrigued by the differences between pressing piano keys and trumpet valves, but no instrument called to him like the piano did. He never expected that one day, he’d need the meager skills he learned that night.

After three years of playing gigs for bewildering amounts of money that the rich threw at him with abandon, Naruto no longer needed to rely on Teuchi’s generosity to survive the winter months. He met hundreds of dazzlingly unique people, he played on a hundred grand pianos, he learned a hundred songs by heart and improvised a hundred more. Now, Naruto could look into the future and feel not only desperate hope, but excitement for what life had to offer him.

Then, Teuchi died.

It was a heart attack, though they hadn’t known until it was too late. Naruto cursed and cried and clutched at himself so tightly he left nail marks all over his arms. He hardly noticed. Teuchi was gone. Teuchi, who had given him a roof over his head and kind smiles and introduced him to the beauty of the piano... He was gone. Gone.

Naruto ran. Not literally, but it was close. He packed up all he could fit into a large satchel and fled Teuchi’s bar, unable to bear its painful familiarity when the most important part was no longer there. Seeing Ayame was even worse; she was devastated with grief, but she still tried to comfort Naruto even as she fought to hold back her sobs. So he left.

 _I’m a coward_ , he thought. But— _I don’t care._

Having cut off all contact to any of Genma’s aquaintances (and their acquaintances, and _their_ acquaintances) who might want to hire him, Naruto found himself running low on money by September—five months since he ran away.

“Has it really been that long?” he mumbled to himself. Scouring his mind, he couldn’t dredge up a single memory since the morning Teuchi hadn’t woken up. It was all a grey haze of oversleeping, wandering aimlessly around the city, just— _wallowing_... He hadn’t touched a piano in months.

It was as he was trudging down the street, head down, thoughts sluggish, that he saw it. A gold glint caught his eye, and he looked up to see a shiny trumpet displayed proudly behind a shop window.

“Ah,” he said.

The trumpet in the window was far too expensive for Naruto to buy with his remaining money, but the shop also had a selection of used instruments for sale. Naruto left the store with a worn brass trumpet, unfamiliar in his hands but gleaming with something like hope. The next day, he stood on a street corner, placed his hat upside-down on the ground in front of him, and began to play. He was no expert, but he had learned the notes from the friendly trumpeter at that party, and improvising was the same whatever medium the notes came through.

Naruto smiled for the first time in five months. He had something to do again, something that wasn’t drowning in grief—something rather... nice.

And he could pay rent!

(Barely.)

The world became a little brighter, and Naruto enjoyed playing on street corners to spark joy in the lives of passersby, even on days he didn’t make much money. But still the mere thought of going back to Teuchi’s bar—was it even in business anymore?—made his hands shake with dread. The thought of going back there and facing the fact that Teuchi himself wasn’t there... He couldn’t stomach it. So he continued being a coward, playing the trumpet on street corners and making it through each day, living for the smiles his music put on people’s faces and the coins they tossed into his hat.

* * *

Until now.

Naruto sat on a small bed in a locked room and glared at the man standing in front of him. “You didn’t have to _kidnap_ me!”

The grey-haired man—he had introduced himself as Kakashi—shrugged and waved an airy hand. “Well, it was easier this way.”

Naruto gaped. “How?!”

“Isn’t it obvious?” The man leaned against the wall. Even with his tie loose and shirt half-unbuttoned, the sharp lines of his suit made his height all the more imposing. He looked familiar, so he must have attended some parties where Naruto had played. “I wasn’t sure you’d agree. You’ve been avoiding everyone who knows you for the past year—made it very difficult to find you, by the way. Not even Genma knew where you'd gone."

This madman knew Genma?

"So, it was much easier to bypass any possibility of refusal,” Kakashi explained.

“That’s insane,” Naruto breathed, shaking his head. “Kidnapping is illegal, you old man!”

“Hey!” Kakashi straightened up in affront. “Respect your elders, Naruto Uzumaki.”

Naruto twitched. “Wh-what if I say no?”

“Sheesh, kids are really not so bright these days,” Kakashi groused. He walked towards Naruto and leaned down to stare directly at him. “You don’t get a choice.”

“Get out of my face!” Naruto said, scrambling to the side. “What’s with the kidnapping and the threats; are you mafia or... something...” His mouth dropped open.

“Ding ding ding!” Kakashi smiled with his eyes closed and placed a hand on his chest. “You’re looking at Kakashi Hatake, the left hand of mumble-mumble.”

Naruto squinted. “What?”

“I said, my name is Kakashi Hatake, the left hand of mumble-mumble.”

“Are you mocking me?” Naruto complained. What sort of hardened criminal behaved like this?

Kakashi repeated loudly, “I’m the left hand of—” his voice dropped, “ _mumble-mumble_.”

Naruto shook his head and glared, but before he could snap back, Kakashi had swept forward and yanked him to his feet, scooping Naruto’s cap from where it had been left on the bedside table and mashing it onto his messy blond spikes.

“Wha—let go of me!”

“No, thank you,” Kakashi said cheerfully, easily wrestling Naruto under control. He steered him towards the door and began leading him down the hallway. “Come on, now, let’s go.”

Naruto gave up the struggle after a while, realizing it was futile. Kakashi was stronger than a milk cow with a grudge. Instead, Naruto took the chance to look around at his surroundings. He had woken up earlier in an unfamiliar room with nothing in it but a small bed, a nightstand, and a faded red carpet. His mind had been muddled with confusion, but it hadn’t been long before the grey-haired man—Kakashi Hatake—had arrived to explain his situation: play the piano at his birthday party to-morrow, or... die? Was the other option death? If he truly was a part of the mafia, then it was probably death. Naruto ground his teeth.

The hallway that they were currently in was well-furnished and had the look of both old and new money, although it wasn’t as opulent as some of what Naruto had seen during his days as a popular pianist. The walls were hung with paintings, the hardwood floor covered by a long red rug that sank beneath their footsteps. There was an ornate mirror on one wall, and Naruto glanced at his and Kakashi’s reflection as they passed.

How had he gotten into this situation?

Kakashi manhandled Naruto through various hallways until they reached a set of intricately carved wooden double doors. “And, here we are!” Kakashi declared, kicking the doors open with no regard for how expensive they likely were.

“Where is here?” Naruto muttered, unimpressed. His mind was clearing up, but he still didn’t feel any fear. Was it the surreal nature of the situation, or perhaps the lingering effects of the drugs they must’ve given him? _Or maybe I’m just amazing_ , he decided.

“The ballroom, of course!” Kakashi swept his hand across the grand hall, ending his flourish with a finger pointed to the beautiful grand piano at one end of the room. “You should get familiar with the piano before to-morrow. That’s something musicians need to do with their instruments, right?”

A shiver ran down Naruto’s spine as he looked at the piano. He hadn’t touched one since... many months before. It made him inexplicably nervous to think of going near it, memories of Teuchi’s bar coming unbidden to his mind, and his palms began to sweat. He rubbed his hands against the fabric of his trousers. “Um. No! I’m fine, old man. I can wait til to-morrow.”

Kakashi pinned him with a stare. “You had better not be getting cold feet,” he said, voice suddenly low and dark. It was a far cry from his previous whimsical tone. “Must I remind you of who I am?”

“Uh—”

“I am Kakashi Hatake,” the man murmured, shoving his face into Naruto’s again. The action felt much more invasive this time. His eyes were sharp and threatening. “The Uchiha family’s left hand. And to-morrow is my twenty-sixth birthday, so do _not_ throw a fit and let me think I kidnapped you for nothing.”

Naruto should have been quaking at the revelation that Kakashi’s boss was the head of the most powerful mafia family in New York, but all he could think was, _There’s no way this guy is twenty-six. He has to be in his thirties at least!_

“You don’t scare me,” he lied. He was hopeful that his voice came out steady enough to be convincing. A small voice in Naruto’s head wondered if it wasn’t past time for him to be facing the piano again, forcibly or not.

“Ah, I’m hurt,” Kakashi said, rubbing his head. He had returned immediately to his previous cheery manner, as if Naruto had imagined the whole thing.

“Good,” Naruto grumbled.

“What a painful statement. I’m wounded beyond recovery.” Kakashi took a moment to lay his hand on his heart and widen his eyes in mock hurt, before grabbing Naruto by the shoulder again and turning him back to the direction they came. “Well, I suppose we’re done here. The party’s to-morrow at 7 in the evening. Be prepared.”

Naruto let himself be steered towards his room—his prison?—with a resigned look on his face. “I can hardly wait.”

* * *

** Sasuke **

When Sasuke arrived at Kakashi's birthday party, he was already in a dark mood.

He had slept for a mere handful of hours the previous night, woken early by shots fired outside his window—courtesy of street thugs who somehow thought that attacking the Uchiha family was a jolly good idea. Sasuke suspected the goons to have been hired by the Hyugas, who were growing more and more antagonistic as of late—especially since the death of their boss. But there had been no telling signs to identify a connection, so the matter had been tabled.

After that unwelcome disturbance, Itachi had all but tied Sasuke to a chair in order to force him away from his paperwork, citing a need for “rest”. Who needed rest when there were figures to be calculated? And to top everything off, Itachi had dragged Sasuke to Kakashi’s birthday celebration early. Why did Sasuke need to spend more than a meager hour standing around and pretending to like others’ company when in reality, he would prefer a knife to the face?

“Don’t be stubborn,” Itachi said when Sasuke asked him that question. “I’m sure you can find someone tolerable to talk with. Perhaps an attractive young woman with whom to spend the night.”

Sasuke grimaced at the thought. “Hmf.”

Deidara leaned into Sasuke’s face, breath sliding across his skin. “That’s right. Twenty-one years without a single notch on your bedpost, last I heard. Unless things have changed...?”

“Fuck off,” Sasuke said. He firmly ignored the heat rising in his cheeks.

“So, that’s a no,” Deidara drawled with a grin.

“Deidara.” Itachi’s voice was firm and laced with reproach, yet still disgustingly fond. “Sasuke, you should be enjoying yourself—drinking, socializing, having... fun.” Itachi was dressed in the same crisp black suit he always wore, though he’d loosened his tie in an attempt to look something other than uptight. With his hair down and his arm slung around Deidara’s waist, he almost managed it. Almost.

“Do you have fun at parties?” Sasuke asked pointedly.

Itachi’s face gave a very tiny twitch. “Yes,” he said.

“Sure,” Deidara interrupted with a roll of his eyes. “We all know you’re a sorry bluenose who wouldn’t know fun if it crawled up your ass and died.”

“You seem very interested in what goes ‘up my ass’,” Itachi murmured into Deidara’s ear. Sasuke heard and immediately wished he hadn’t.

“I’m leaving,” he snapped. He strode away without waiting for a reply. Those two were sickening. If that was what romance was like, Sasuke was glad he’d never engaged in it.

He wandered the grand ballroom for a few minutes, idly swirling a glass of champagne in his hand. He didn’t tend to like alcohol, but champagne was light enough for him to swallow easily, and its relatively simple and familiar flavors made spiking it more difficult for any hopeful assassins. Guests were beginning to arrive. Dodging someone’s attempt to pull him into a conversation, Sasuke found himself in a comparatively empty pocket of the room. It was empty, quite obviously, because of the large grand piano and the man sitting in front of it.

Sitting in front of it. Not playing it, not even making a motion to put his hands on the keys. Had Kakashi hired a pianist or a statue?

“You there.” Sasuke had nothing better to do, at any rate. He folded his arms atop the piano. “What are you doing?”

The blond man looked up. “What?”

He was handsome, jarringly so, with crystalline eyes and a strong nose and a jawline sharper than the previously mentioned hypothetical knife to Sasuke’s face. Sasuke was thrown slightly off guard. He cleared his throat. “What are you doing?” he repeated with added bite. “Scared of the damn piano?”

“Uh.” The man’s mouth opened and closed, but nothing further came out.

Sasuke gaped at him and pushed himself upright. “Don’t tell me you are actually scared of it. What the hell? Is this Kakashi’s idea of a joke?” Hiring a pianist who was afraid to play did not seem out of character.

“You know Kakashi?” the man blurted.

Sasuke stared. He looked around at the ballroom dedicated to Kakashi Hatake’s thirty-sixth birthday party. He looked back at the pianist. He then gave the most derisive snort the world had ever witnessed.

“OK, OK, you know Kakashi,” the man said, putting his hands up with a glare. “Hey. Not a word.”

“Hm. As if you could do anything to discourage me.”

“I could!” The man scowled. “Who are you, anyways?”

He didn’t know who Sasuke was? Sasuke covered up his surprise and replied, “My name is Sasuke. Yours?”

“Naruto,” the man responded, following Sasuke’s lead by only giving his first name. Sasuke was fairly certain he didn’t know anyone of import named Naruto Anything, so it didn’t matter. A waiter passed with a tray of champagne, and Sasuke replaced his empty flute with two bubbling ones.

“Here.” He shoved one into Naruto’s face and kept the other for himself.

“For me? But I’m supposed to be playing.”

“I don’t see you playing anything,” Sasuke pointed out, smirking when the other man flushed. “Just drink it. It might stop you from being scared long enough to touch the keys, at least.”

“Fine,” Naruto said. He downed the glass in one gulp.

“This isn’t vodka, you idiot,” Sasuke said, appalled. “You’re meant to savor it.”

Before Naruto could respond, a familiar figure swooped in on the conversation. “Hello there, Naruto!” Kakashi exclaimed with inflated cheer. “Ah, and Sasuke, what a pleasant surprise.”

“How I wish I could say the same,” Sasuke muttered.

Kakashi turned his attention to Naruto, whose hands had teleported to the keys immediately upon Kakashi’s appearance. “Are you ready to play? The guests have already begun to arrive. You wouldn’t want them to mingle in stifling silence, would you?” He loomed menacingly over Naruto.

“That is—well—I’ll start right away!” Naruto said quickly.

Kakashi waited.

“Um...” Naruto leaned slightly away from him. “Can you... move out of the way?”

“No,” Kakashi said, but he moved out of the way. “Now, duty calls, but I shall be eagerly anticipating your delightful playing, ha ha ha.” His closed-eye smile emitted a few rather unconvincing sparkles.

“Right.” Sasuke and Naruto watched Kakashi saunter off into the crowd. Naruto rubbed his palms against the fabric of his trousers before replacing his hands on the piano, the lump in his throat bobbing.

Sasuke held out his own glass of champagne, which was still half full. “Drink this, will you, and stop sweating all over the piano.”

Naruto clicked his tongue but took the glass. “You’re an awful prickly guy, huh.” Sasuke opened his mouth to retort but his eyes were suddenly drawn to the place where Naruto’s lips touched the rim of the glass. Right where where Sasuke’s lips had been a minute earlier. Again Naruto threw the expensive champagne back with an utter lack of appreciation.

“And you’re more than a little strange,” Sasuke said finally. He wondered what sort of person was so afraid of pianos.

“Shove off,” Naruto said. There was no bite to his words. He set the glass on top of the piano and took a deep breath as his fingers settled on the keys. “OK, here we go.”

He then began to play the worst song Sasuke had ever heard. The song itself wasn’t bad, he guessed, but Naruto’s playing left much to be desired. His fingers moved clunkily over the keys, slipping around and and fumbling over one another and missing notes every two measures. Naruto’s entire body was locked tight, and it was obvious that he was barely breathing. What in the hell...?

A waiter passed by as Sasuke was attempting not to gawk at this awful display, and he snatched two more glasses from the tray. “What the hell?” he repeated aloud the moment Naruto played the last note. Sasuke pushed a glass into his hand without waiting for him to respond. “You’ll need more alcohol if you want to fix whatever _that_ was.”

“And you need alcohol to fix your personality,” Naruto returned, glaring. His free hand was curling and uncurling at his side.

Sasuke scoffed. “Rather, I need it to steel myself for all the other horrors you’re sure to inflict on my ears tonight.”

Naruto’s eyes blazed with a swift indignation. “Give me that.”

“What—no—” but Naruto had already yanked the champagne flute from Sasuke’s grasp. He downed one, then the other, before shoving them both into Sasuke’s hands like he was some obedient serving boy.

“Let me show you _horrors_ ,” Naruto declared.

“Please don’t,” Sasuke said, but his words fell on deaf ears.

Naruto settled his hands on the ivory keys, and—oh. _Oh._

The music that now flowed from beneath his fingers was bright and lively, a rousing invigoration of energy that jolted through Sasuke and made him straighten unconsciously. Naruto’s body was no longer tense; instead it swayed easily as his hands flew up, down, danced across black and white, here and there and here again, too quickly for Sasuke to follow. His callused fingers, previously rigid wooden blocks, had transformed into nimble acrobats that leapt and flew across their monochrome stage.

And Naruto—he was smiling.

“Wow,” Sasuke breathed, so quietly that he himself barely heard it. He snapped his mouth shut. Was he so drunk already to be going starry-eyed at some everyday piano-groping? He had imbibed less than two glasses of champagne, which was not known for being the hardest of alcohols. There was simply something about the way this man played that spun a frothing summer storm to life in Sasuke’s chest.

Naruto finished the piece, the last chords lingering in Sasuke’s ears even as the sounds themselves faded completely. He looked up at Sasuke and tilted his head. “Did you say something?” he asked.

“No,” Sasuke lied. He grasped for something to say. “The alcohol worked fast.”

Naruto gave a wry smile slanted with emotions Sasuke couldn’t quite parse. “Looks like it.” He took a breath. “Well, at the very least Kakashi can’t kill me for being lackluster entertainment. Hopefully.” Naruto glanced around as if keeping an eye out for the man and hurriedly started up another song. His aversion to the keys seemed to have disappeared, or he was doing a good job of pretending it had.

Sasuke drank his champagne. He no longer thought he needed it to survive hearing Naruto’s music, but he urgently needed to distract himself or he would wind up gongoozling at Naruto like Itachi stared at Deidara’s ass. He frowned and put those two saps out of his mind. When Naruto’s hands paused again, Sasuke asked, “Who are you?”

“Um.” Naruto looked at Sasuke like he thought he was stupid. Or drunk. “I’m Naruto. Naruto Uzumaki.”

The newly given surname seemed familiar, but most names did. “That’s not what I meant, idiot,” Sasuke said, rolling his eyes. “Not your name, but who _are_ you? I’ve never seen you before.”

Naruto’s lips twitched like he wanted to laugh. “I’m nobody,” he said with a shrug. “At least, not yet.”

Sasuke felt something unfamiliar, perhaps curiosity, rising in his chest, but another song fluttered up from the piano and his questions were cut off. He replaced the words in his mouth with champagne. Naruto played continuously for a stretch of ten or more minutes, and by the next time he stopped, the world was looking pleasantly flushed through Sasuke’s gaze. Being tipsy was annoying, he thought, but he reached for another glass almost against his will.

“What about you?” Naruto said.

“What?” Sasuke looked at him over the rim of the champagne flute. He really was handsome, eyes blue like tundra ice but somehow inescapably warm.

“Who are you?” Naruto clarified. Something jolted in his face as he seemed to realize something. “You’ve got to be a part of... the...”

He could not be that stupid. “If you say ‘mafia’, I’m leaving,” Sasuke said. He determinedly did not think about why he hadn’t left already.

The look on Naruto’s face suggested that he _had_ been about to say ‘mafia’. He scrambled for another option. “The—the Uchiha family! You’ve got to be involved with them if you know Kakashi.”

That second part wasn’t exactly true, but it was slightly less moronic of an answer as the incredibly obvious one he’d been poised to give before. “Involved with them,” Sasuke repeated, taking care that none of his internal amusement showed on his face. “You could say that.”

As the night ambled on, Naruto continued playing, and Sasuke continued drinking. It was the simplest thing in the world to keep reaching for another glass and another, sipping away at the bubbly champagne as equally bubbly music danced through the air. At some point, Kakashi came over and needled the two of them with his typical irritating behavior, though he seemed pleased that Naruto had begun playing. Luckily for the old bastard, he had a sixth sense for when their patience was about to run out, for he sailed away right as Sasuke was seriously considering tossing his sixth—or seventh, eighth?—glass of champagne all over Kakashi’s suit.

In the brief minute-long rests between one series of songs and the next, Naruto talked, and Sasuke talked back. Words fell from his lips like marbles from a jar, one easily after another in a way that had never before been natural to him. But Naruto pulled thoughts and feelings from his brain and out of his mouth and into the space between them by just being there. The champagne probably had a hand in it as well.

At around eleven o’ clock, Sasuke glanced at his watch and was faintly surprised that he’d stayed this long already. Normally, he would have already made his (very flimsy) excuses and left whichever party Itachi had dragged him to in the name of ‘fun’, but somehow he found that he didn’t _want_ to leave. That was definitely the alcohol talking, Sasuke thought to himself, steadfastly ignoring the way he kept glancing at Naruto’s hands, neck, lips—

Well, fuck.

Leaning against the wall next to the piano bench, Sasuke shifted his weight and tried not to think about the slow, quiet thrumming in his lower belly. Honey-warm with a hint of a spark, not quite anything yet but filled with the potential to be.

“Sasuke,” Naruto said, voice low and raspy, and the sparks in Sasuke’s belly crackled like fire. “Get me another drink.”

“Get your own drink,” Sasuke bit out. His words lacked their usual sharp clarity, and he contradicted his response by taking another glass of champagne from a nearby waiter and handing it to Naruto. Their fingers brushed. Naruto’s hands were rough and callused, and the brief contact soaked heat into Sasuke’s fingertips.

 _Fuck_ , Sasuke repeated with feeling.

The hands on his watch ticked on past midnight and kept on going. The crowd shrank as people left to do the deed with whatever pretty stranger they’d stumbled upon that night, but the noise inside the grand ballroom only grew louder as more and more alcohol was imbibed by the remaining guests.

Sasuke couldn’t keep his eyes off Naruto. The blond’s face was flushed from the champagne he’d drunk between songs, and at some point during the night he’d loosened his tie and undone the first few buttons of his shirt. His collarbones glistened with a sheen of sweat, glimpses of his chest peeking above white fabric.

“Sasuke,” Naruto said again. His throat bobbed as he swallowed, and there was nothing in the world that could have torn Sasuke’s wine-flushed gaze away from the sight.

“What?” Sasuke said, voice coming out breathless in a way he hadn’t intended. Naruto’s blue eyes were the sole points of focus in Sasuke’s hazy vision. The intensity of his gaze burned into Sasuke, seared his skin, grabbed him by the ribs and pulled him closer, closer, but nowhere near close enough.

In the end, he didn’t know how it happened. There was no memory of the jump that must have happened between those hours leaning silently, enraptured, next to the piano as Naruto played... and now. Now, somehow his hands were on Naruto, and Naruto’s hands were on him, large and warm with calluses scraping against Sasuke’s skin. Lips, soft and slightly chapped, mouthing at his jaw and neck and the crook of his shoulder, and Sasuke was desperate to return the favor, tongue darting out to lave across that gorgeous tanned skin—

He saw Itachi, directly in the stumbling path they were taking away from the ballroom. Sasuke would have certainly overlooked him otherwise. His older brother was giving him a faint smile and an awkward thumbs-up that looked utterly ridiculous on him. Any annoyed thought Sasuke might have had were quickly drowned underneath the sea of sensation and excitement and roiling fire that swirled in his belly. Fireworks sparking against ocean waves. Naruto’s lips pressed against his, feverish, and from then on that was the only thing Sasuke could think about at all.

* * *

** Kakashi **

On the top floor, Kakashi stood silently before the window, casting his gaze out across the city and wondering if somewhere in that sea of lights, Neji Hyuga was doing the same. They both certainly had much to think about, and it was very likely, Kakashi mused, that they thought about many of the same things. Such was only natural when each was the other’s fiercest competition.

In 1920, the government had decreed that it was no longer legal to sell alcohol of any kind. Predictably—although the nation’s congressmen evidently had _not_ predicted it—this had not prevented a single drop of wine from being sold, but had merely shifted the massive alcohol market onto the other side of the law. Kakashi had been one of the first to capitalize on the change, scenting profit and immediately realigning his gang’s focus from drug-smuggling to rum-running. Before long, Kakashi was rolling in dough.

Some people had not been pleased with his meteoric rise in the criminal world, among them the Hyuga—who had also capitalized on the new black market, but with less success. The Uchiha also tried their hand at smuggling alcohol, but they were outmatched by the other big families in New York. Instead of butting heads with Kakashi’s group like the Hyuga did, they paid Kakashi a very large sum of money to merge with them. Smart. Knowing a good deal when he saw it, Kakashi had agreed, and the results had turned out to be even more prosperous than he’d imagined.

He wondered if the Uchiha felt the same. The merger had brought an enormous influx of cash to the family, but at the cost of a proportional increase in enmity from the Hyuga. Now, any encounter between members of the two families was all but certain to end in blood, and the hazy borders between the territories saw frequent sparks of violence. Now, the clashes between the families were rising in intensity. Now—the Hyuga had kidnapped Sasuke’s new inamorato.

“What are you thinking right now, Neji Hyuga?” Kakashi asked the sea of city lights. He turned away from the window. “No, what _were_ you thinking?”

Reports had described him as grieving and angry over the deaths of his father and his uncle—the previous head of the family—but the Hyuga had been the ones to instigate that particular conflict, and with difficulty it could still be waved away to avoid a serious escalation of enmity. But Sasuke was important in his own right, although he was not the head of the Uchiha but only the second son, and Naruto’s kidnapping was explicitly an attempt to target him. This... this could mean all-out war.

Kakashi went to the telephone on his desk and dialled a number.

It picked up after eight rings. “Hello?” Sasuke’s voice was raspy and strained. Kakashi suspected he might not have picked up if not for the fact that only a few people knew this particular number, and all of them had stakes in this mess.

“This is Kakashi. Meet me at Kurenai’s in twenty minutes. We need to talk.” Kakashi was the sort of man to pretend he didn’t take things seriously, though he usually did. But he couldn’t sound anything but serious if he wanted Sasuke to listen. He hung up without waiting for a response.

Twenty minutes passed, and Kakashi pushed through the door to the speakeasy into the noisy atmosphere inside. Chatter filled the air, light glanced off a thousand reflective surfaces—jewelry, watches, glassware—and as he walked further in, wisps of smoke curled around him as if in greeting. Kurenai, the owner of the bar, spotted him and nodded in acknowledgement, Kakashi returning the gesture. A moment’s search found Sasuke sitting a table on the far end of the bar, nursing a glass of beer as Suigetsu lurked nearby.

Kakashi joined him. “You’re taking this hard,” he noted. It was true. Sasuke’s shoulders were hunched, his brows drawn, his dark eyes staring listlessly into the depths of his drink. It had only been two weeks since he met Naruto, but Sasuke looked like a housewife whose husband had been sent overseas to fight in the Great War.

Sasuke merely grunted in response, so Kakashi continued, “How did this happen? I thought you would have had him under some sort of decent protection.”

This elicited a reaction. “I did,” Sasuke bit out, “until yesterday.”

Kakashi raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“He didn’t want to be involved. With the mafia.” Well, it was rather too late for that. “I—I argued with him, but I couldn’t convince him to stay. He left.” Sasuke’s expression said it had taken every ounce of his self control to let the man go.

“Hell.” Kakashi let out a short exhale and stole a sip from Sasuke’s beer. Sasuke’s only objection was a scowl, a sure sign of just how beaten down he was. “He’s certainly involved now, whether he likes it or not.”

He hadn’t intended things to go this way when he’d performed his own act of kidnapping.

1\. Get the kid.  
2\. Make him play for the night.  
3\. Stuff his pockets full of cash for the trouble and turn him loose.

At any rate, that had been the plan, a logistical side note to the revelry of Kakashi’s birthday party. Then Sasuke had gone and taken a liking to the kid, and the Hyuga had gone and targeted him. Nothing in this world could be easy for Kakashi, could it? Guilt sat heavy in his belly.

“Don’t look so pathetic. You look as if someone dropped a mountain of self-loathing on your head,” Sasuke accused.

“You’re one to talk,” Kakashi threw out in return, resting his elbows on the table. “What’s done is done. What are you going to do about it?”

“What else can I do?” Sasuke said. “I’m going to get him back.”

“ _You_ are?”

“You know what I mean!” Sasuke’s irritation flared hot and ready, his temper much shorter than normal. “I’ve contacted Flora and Fauna. Three thousand for Sakura herself to come with me to retrieve Naruto and kill that bastard Hyuga.”

Kakashi’s brow shot up. “... Neji Hyuga?”

“Who else?” Sasuke snapped.

“You’re hiring Flora and Fauna to kill the boss of the Hyuga family,” Kakashi clarified. He could feel a headache building.

Ino Yamanaka and Sakura Haruno—known colloquially as Flora, who dealt in poisons and accidents, and Fauna, who favored the more direct, hunterlike approach of bullets to the noggin—ran the most infamous contract killing business in New York. Take out a hit from them, and whosever name you whispered was sure to be dead by next Friday.

“I know the consequences. I’m not stupid. Killing the boss is a big move, but it could turn out in our favor. The reason tensions have been so high between us and them is because Neji took over and he’s lashing out. He’s unstable. If we remove him from the picture, the new boss might be more reasonable to negotiate with.”

“Or they could be even more aggressive,” Kakashi pointed out. “You could be instigating a war.”

“They’ve already instigated a war,” Sasuke spat. “Not just by kidnapping my—kidnapping Naruto, but everything that has happened in the past year. We need to strike back.”

“What does the boss think?” Kakashi asked carefully. It was clear to him that Sasuke wasn’t entirely in his right mind.

There was a stretch of silence, thorny and damning.

Kakashi inhaled. “The boss doesn’t know.”

And independent contractors though they were, Flora and Fauna wouldn’t take a job like this for fear of the consequences unless the boss of the hiring family signed on to imply protection. It was a tricky business, staying neutral while killing for hire. That meant... “You lied to Flora and Fauna.”

“I didn’t lie, exactly,” Sasuke hedged. “It doesn’t matter. I talked to Itachi, and he said it was OK.”

Kakashi could read between the lines. Itachi, who had always had a soft spot for his younger brother, had listened to Sasuke’s plight and agreed to handle whatever fallout resulted from his actions. Predictable, predictable.

“Your reasoning isn’t flawed,” Kakashi admitted. The flawed part was that the _only_ reasoning Sasuke had done was in support of his wild plan, and he’d willfully neglected to consider all the drawbacks that he surely knew existed. However, Kakashi could see a scenario in which it worked out. “You’re going to tag along with Fauna?”

Sasuke’s jaw clenched. “Yes.”

He was risking a lot for a nobody like Naruto. Kakashi couldn’t say anything about that, seeing as— “I’m in.”

“The hell you are.”

“I am, and that is final.”

“What would the boss think?” Sasuke mimicked.

“You know he doesn’t care what I do,” Kakashi reminded him. “I can take care of myself.”

“Tch.” Sasuke shook his head and regained a businesslike expression. “She’s coming to my apartment tonight to finalize the deal and plan the operation.”

“When?” It was already past ten in the evening.

Sasuke glanced at his watch. “In half an hour.”

“Then let’s go. We don’t want to keep her waiting.”

* * *

** Sakura: || **

Sakura attempted to dig the blood out from under her fingernails as she stepped into the elevator. A few tiny flecks fell to floor, but a stubborn amount yet remained. Sakura renewed her efforts and requested passage to the twelfth floor between grumbles. If only she hadn’t wiped her hand across her blood-spattered face after shooting her most recent target this morning...

The elevator stopped at the twelfth floor, and Sakura made her way to Sasuke’s suite, already running through information in her head.

At the door, she knocked twice.

“Sakura.” Sasuke opened the door and stepped aside. “Come in. Kakashi is here too,” he told her before they entered the sitting room. And Suigetsu of course, but he always was.

“He wants in?”

“Yes. He wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

“He’ll be a good asset,” Sakura reasoned. She strode into the sitting room and, spotting Kakashi on the couch, gave him a nod. Without further pleasantries, she unfurled a blueprint onto the coffee table and began to speak. “Uzumaki is being kept on the top floor, the tenth floor, of a Hyuga hotel-casino—White Palace on 86th Street. He’s still alive.”

Kakashi exhaled. “Good. My sources weren’t able to tell me that, though they did find that Neji has stayed in the building since the kidnapping, except between around midnight and 10 in the morning.”

“We’ll have to go in before midnight, then,” Sasuke said. “It would be easier to kill him now than some other time after retrieving Naruto.”

Sakura nodded. She was not unaccustomed to completing two objectives at once. “We should enter the building at around 11 at night, when there are the most customers. He’ll be expecting it, but that won’t change the fact that it’s the easiest time to blend in unnoticed.”

“You’re well-prepared,” said Kakashi.

She looked at him. “It’s my job.”

They spent another hour on the details, and Sasuke paid Sakura thirty per-cent up front. It was agreed that they would meet here to-morrow night at ten and commence the operation or adjust it accordingly to any new information.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Sakura said. “Get some sleep. Fatigue makes you sloppy.”

“I know,” Sasuke said.

Kakashi held the door open for her. “Good night, Fauna.”

“Good night,” Sakura replied, rolling her eyes at the epithet. “I mean it. Go to bed, all of you. I don’t need you yawning on the job and getting shot in the mouth.”

“Ye of little faith,” Suigetsu said sadly.

Sasuke dipped his head. “Good night, Sakura.”

“Good night.”

The following evening found the four of them in Sasuke’s apartment again, packing heat and tense with anticipation. Absent were the jittering nerves that would plague most amateurs, and in their place narrow-eyed focus and restrained energy, ready to be unleashed upon a target at a moment’s notice. Sakura donned a maid uniform that made Suigetsu’s lip twitch, but from then on, it was all business. They confirmed the plan and set out for the White Palace.

While the men rounded the side of the building, Sakura slipped into the casino with an unassuming black wig placed firmly on her head. The black kerchief she typically wore on jobs obscured her features well enough that most people wouldn’t be able to recognize her, and at any rate, her now-hidden pink hair was by far her most distinctive trait.

The inside of the casino was crowded and noisy, and a haze of smoke dimmed the room. Sakura made her way towards the back stairs, demure and unobtrusive as a maid should be, but not as secretive as an intruder might be. She was merely another employee passing through. Once she reached the second floor, she began to move with more purpose. _I have somewhere to be. I’m doing my job. I belong here. I have somewhere to be. I’m doing my job..._

Luckily—and it was a fact of life that these things were simply a matter of luck and chance—Sakura arrived at the ninth floor without confrontation. The stairs to the tenth and highest floor were too heavily guarded to slip by, but that wasn’t her goal. Still exuding a quiet air of dutiful surety, Sakura entered Room 93 and quietly shut the door behind her. She crossed to the window and opened it to see her three compatriots waiting on the ground below.

Seeing her face poke out through the window, they sprang to attention and began to hurry up the fire escape. The iron steps creaked loudly underneath their feet, and when they were halfway up a man wandered into the alleyway, peered upwards, and caught sight of them.

“Hey! What are you doing?”

No matter. They had known the fire escape would be noisy, and the need for subtlety was all but past at this point. When the men reached the window, Sakura stepped back to let them clamber inside. Kakashi, then Sasuke, then Suigetsu, and Sakura closed the window behind them.

“It will take some time for the information to spread,” she said. “For now, we have the advantage of surprise. Hurry.”

They spilled out into the hallway, catching the notice of the nearest Hyuga goons.

“Who are you?”

Another guard had better recognition. “That’s—!”

Sakura didn’t give him time to finish. She darted forward while the man was still lifting his gun and punched him in the throat. He staggered, choking, grip loosening—she wrenched the gun from his hand and smashed it against his head. Down. In the corner of her eyes, Kakashi took care of the other guard.

They had made noise. More were coming, and Sakura heard their footsteps around the corner. No time to dally. She ran to meet them—the first man to round the corner had his gun raised, but he hadn’t been expecting her. She batted his arm aside, grabbed his jacket, and slammed her knee into his ribs. Blood splattered from his mouth. Down. The next fired off a shot before she could do anything, but his aim was wild and the bullet flew into the wall. Sakura shot him with the gun she’d taken from the first guard. Down.

She was faintly aware of the fighting all around her—Kakashi, Sasuke, and Suigetsu somewhere in its midst—but she could only focus on what pertained directly to her. A man coming up from behind. A stray shot clipping her cheek. A fallen pistol on the floor by her foot. She snatched it up and tossed the other gun when its magazine emptied.

They made it to the stairs. Bodies both unconscious and dead lined the hallway in their wake as they hurried upwards. They didn’t go unassailed for long. Men appeared at the top of the stairwell, guns sounding _pop-pop-pop_ as they fired down into the bottleneck. Sakura and her compatriots fired back, but dodging was impossible and Sakura took a bullet to the arm. Her flesh screamed, but the sensation was a familiar one and she didn’t slow, slamming into the bubble of Hyuga men in a whirlwind of elbows and knees. Most mafia goons were utterly incompetent in close quarters where it was difficult to squeeze off a shot; Sakura tore through them with ease.

“There’ll be more coming up the stairs,” Sakura said, panting. “Suigetsu, stay here and don’t let anyone come up from below.”

“Got it.”

The other three fought their way through the top floor, checking every room for Uzumaki and Neji. Finally, Sakura peered around a corner and spotted a door blocked by two men, one tall and one short, who hadn’t rushed to stop the intruders—they were guarding something important. She glanced at her companions and saw that they had deduced it as well.

“So that’s where,” Sasuke breathed, eyes dark and wildly furious.

“Don’t—” Kakashi warned, but he was too late.

Sasuke threw himself into sight and fired off a shot before dashing forward to attack the guards in close quarters. The taller guard was forced onto the defensive, but the other reacted quickly and cocked his pistol at Sasuke. Sakura frantically covered him with shots aimed to push the shorter guard away from Sasuke, and a bullet from Kakashi took him out. As Kakashi and Sakura sprinted to join him, Sasuke knocked the tall one unconscious and moved to open the door.

“Don’t—” Sakura and Kakashi said at the same time.

Heedless, Sasuke kicked the door open wide. A gunshot sounded from within, but Sakura was already tackling Sasuke out of the way. The bullet grazed her shoulderblade. She didn’t let the pain slow her from rolling to her feet to face Neji as Kakashi returned fire at him from behind the doorframe. Sasuke scrambled up to stand next to Sakura.

In less than a second, Sakura’s eyes flitted around the room and took in the situation. Kakashi behind her, Sasuke beside her. Neji Hyuga, gun in hand, another on his hip, and a thundercloud look on his regal face. The hotel bed had been dragged to sit oddly in the middle of the room, facing the doorway. A set of tanned hands were bound with rope and tied to the intricate wooden bedposts, their owner out of view on the other side of the headboard. Uzumaki—although Sakura could not yet discount the possibility of a fake.

 _Bang-bang._ Having again expected the shots, Sakura dove low to avoid them, darting across the short few feet to Neji. His finger twitched to fire again—Sakura, coming up from underneath his guard, pushed his arm to the side to send the bullet flying off wide, then locked her grip and twisted his arm behind his back. One step ahead, Neji bent his knees and flipped her over his shoulder. She landed on her back, breath evacuating, but a tucked chin had prevented an impact against the back of her head and she was already rolling away to avoid the vicious stomp that slammed into the ground where she'd been.

There came the sound of more shots, then the screech of metal on metal. Grunts and curses and impacts, muffled by fabric. Sakura sprang to her feet. Kakashi reloaded his gun and rounded the other side of the bed towards the headboard and the restrained prisoner as Sasuke gradually pressed Neji back with a knife, the exchange of blades messy and whip-fast.

Sakura and Sasuke were not well enough accustomed to working together and she stood a good chance of getting slashed by that blade if she tried to jump in, so she hovered out of the way for a split second, waiting—then she extended her leg, and Neji tumbled backwards over her outstretched foot. Sasuke bore down on Neji, pressing his advantage. But Neji rolled to the side and was suddenly pressing his gun to someone’s temple.

“Don’t—” He was panting. “—move.”

The man sitting on the floor with his hands tied to the bedposts was indeed Naruto Uzumaki, face pale and blue eyes wide. Neji’s arm was hooked threateningly around his neck. It had been less than fifteen seconds since they entered the room, and Sakura’s objectives were already slipping from her grasp.

 _I wasn’t made for this._ She wasn’t made to protect. She killed, and she killed, and she killed, and she killed. How was she meant to prevent someone else from doing the same?

No. No. Sakura gritted her teeth. Flora and Fauna _always_ finished the job.

“How the tides have turned,” Neji said. His harsh breaths were beginning to even out. “Tell me, what does it feel like to know your loved one is in danger? One whisper away from death?”

Sasuke’s stare could have razed a thousand cities, but he didn’t respond.

“I wouldn’t know,” Neji continued, pressing the gun harder into Uzumaki’s temple. Uzumaki swallowed. “After all, before I even knew anything had occurred, my father and uncle were already _dead!_ ”

The last word burst from his mouth in a furious, cracking screech, and the other four in the room all flinched despite themselves. Uzumaki’s eyes flickered back and forth amongst them, searching. Did he know? No, it was clear he didn’t know. Why would he?

Neji was aware of that too. “Naruto... let me tell you. Sasuke’s brother shot my uncle six times in the chest. He died choking on his blood. And the man who came to rescue you... Kakashi Hatake.” Sakura had seen a lot of things in her life, but she had never seen an expression filled with such uncontained hatred as the one Neji leveled at Kakashi now. “He fired the shots that killed my father.”

Kakashi’s face was carefully blank, only the slight twitch of his jaw belying the roiling emotions underneath. Sasuke looked thunderous. His jaw worked as he clearly fought to prevent himself from shouting and provoking Neji.

Neji’s lips peeled back in a terrible snarl. “What do you think of that, Naruto?”

“I... I...” To their collective shock, Uzumaki’s eyes welled with tears, lips trembling and brows drawing up as he met Neji’s gaze. He looked utterly mournful. “That’s—that’s _awful_. I’m so sorry, I’m sorry, you—you shouldn’t have had to experience that. I wish it hadn’t... I’m sorry.”

Neji opened and closed his mouth. Frozen in the face of the bare, naked sorrow that was splayed across Uzumaki’s face as he wept, sharing the pain and grief of the man who held a gun to his head. Tears streamed down his face and fell _plop-plop-plop_ onto the carpet, no hands free to wipe them away. Sakura barely stifled the urge to look away. She felt as if she were intruding on something horribly private, staring into the open walls of Uzumaki’s chest and watching his heart pulse in its hammock of veins.

Neji jerked out of his stupor. “Do you see now?” he sneered, but the words lacked the desperate edge from a minute prior. He pushed more vitriol into his voice as if to make up for it. “What sort of people they are. Do you really think someone like that deserves your love? They took everything from me, and afterwards they laughed about it over drinks.”

“We really didn’t,” Kakashi cut in, tone deceptively casual despite the tension stringing his body.

Neji ignored him. “The Uchiha, they are murderers. They have no honor. They have no mercy. And you should not be fooled, for they certainly have no love.”

* * *

** Naruto: || **

Naruto couldn’t stop crying. Just when he thought tears would dry up, he would remember that wretched look on Neji’s face and the crack in his voice when he’d said _they were already dead_ , and another choking sob would force its way out of his throat, his shoulders shaking as he gasped for air but found himself drowning in the other man’s pain. He couldn’t help but remember Teuchi, who had been a father to him in all but name, and the grief that had paralyzed Naruto in the wake of his death. And though Neji had reacted not by running away but instead by lashing out, Naruto understood. He truly did.

But he didn’t want to die here either.

As Neji continued to talk, Naruto made eye contact with Kakashi, who was to his left while Neji and the others were to his right. Careful to keep his hand out of Neji’s line of sight and to move as little as possible, Naruto painstakingly fingerspelled out: I... C-A-N... D-I- S-T-R-A-K-T. Kakashi’s eyes flashed with silent understanding.

“—and that’s why I had to do this,” Neji was saying. “It was only right that the Uchiha—”

Naruto jerked his head back and smashed it into Neji’s nose. There was a wet crunch, and the room _moved_. Kakashi leapt forward and tackled Neji away from Naruto, and the pink-haired woman reacted instantly, moving to untie Naruto with Sasuke a split second behind her. She sliced through the ropes around his ankles with a knife that she hadn’t been holding before. Sasuke tore through the ropes around Naruto’s wrists with his own knife, pressing the most fleeting of kisses to his chafed skin.

“Can you stand?” he asked hurriedly.

“Yes,” Naruto said, though he had no idea whether he could. Sasuke bent down to curl an arm around his waist and haul him to his feet. He swayed. Sharp tingles shot through his legs and made his knees tremble, but Sasuke supported his weight. Kakashi was wrestling with Neji on the floor. “Thanks.”

“Did he hurt you?”

Naruto worried at his lip. “No...”

Sasuke honed in on the hesitance in his response. “Tell me the truth. If he hurt you in any way—”

“No! No, he really didn’t. He only ever made threats.” Naruto jerked a shoulder. “A lot of threats.”

This hardly seemed to appease Sasuke, who watched the scuffle between Kakashi and Neji with murderous eyes. A mere breath passed before Kakashi kicked Neji’s gun away—the pink-haired woman snatched it up—and pinned him to the ground with his arms locked behind his back.

“Got you,” he breathed. Neji writhed and cursed. Kakashi’s one uncovered eye flickered over to the woman, who raised her gun and leveled it at Neji’s head.

“Wait!”

The room stilled. Naruto registered that he had been the one to speak up. Everyone turned to look at him, save for Kakashi who was focused unerringly on keeping Neji down.

The woman’s surprised glance smoothed out. “You’re not my client,” she said, and her finger locked around the trigger.

“Wait!” This time, both Naruto and Sasuke had cried out.

She looked over again, mouth curled in annoyance. “Sasuke, you can’t be serious.”

“Sakura, I—” Sasuke stared at Naruto, his lips parted helplessly.

Naruto took the opportunity. “You can’t kill him,” he said. He took a step towards the woman, Sasuke attached to him and coming along with.

“I can, rather,” she said. “Sasuke, make up your mind. Would you like me to kill him or not? You’ll pay me the same either way.”

Naruto didn’t know what exactly was going on—she wasn’t a part of the Uchiha family?—but that didn’t matter. “Sasuke, you can’t let her kill him,” he said urgently, turning his head to look Sasuke in the eye. Their noses were nearly touching.

“Why not?” Sasuke looked genuinely confused, and Naruto swallowed the uncomfortable reminder that he was truly mafia, born and raised.

“Because... it’s not right.”

“He kidnapped you,” Sasuke said, as if Naruto had forgotten. “Why are you protecting him?”

“Sure, he’s done bad things,” Naruto admitted. It wasn’t like anything else wouldn’t have been a blatant lie. “But that doesn’t mean I want him dead! He’s—” He turned to peer earnestly at the man in question. “You’re a person, just like me.”

Neji spat out another curse and bucked underneath Kakashi, who simply forced him harder into the plush carpet. Sakura looked increasingly impatient.

“I understand you, Neji,” Naruto said. He didn’t know why he was telling him this, why suddenly these words were pushing insistently against his lips, filling his chest and bursting to get out. He couldn’t make himself stop talking if he tried. “My—the closest thing I ever had to a father... He died last spring.”

Sasuke stilled at this new information, but Naruto wasn’t talking to him.

“It was just horrible,” he continued. He surged forward and dropped to his knees beside Neji, who was staring up at him with bewildered, disbelieving eyes. “It was the worst goddamned day of my life, you know. You know. And I—I ran. Left everything behind, my job and the woman who was as good as my sister, and I spent months just _wallowing_. It was horrible,” he said again.

“So?” Neji gritted out. He seemed unsure, mouth twitching in and out of a scowl.

“So I understand,” Naruto pressed. “It’s not exactly the same, but I know how it feels to lose someone like that.”

“You couldn’t possibly—”

“I do! I mean... it’s like someone ripped a piece of you out of your chest. It’s horrible and hollow and it hurts to think about and it hurts even when you’re not thinking about it, and almost everything seems pointless.” His eyes met Neji’s, pleading. _Do you hear me?_ “And almost all you can think is, why me? Why him?”

Neji’s eyes were wide and glossy. “Why… me?” he repeated. “I ask that—every day.”

Naruto swallowed the bubble of hot, familiar grief that welled up in his throat. “You don’t have to die here,” he said. He bent down to put his face closer to Nejii’s, willing him to understand, to listen. “You can be better than this. Your life can be better than this!”

“Must you yell so loud,” he heard Kakashi grumble from behind him.

“They killed my family,” Neji croaked out. “How can I leave them be?”

“You don’t have to forgive them!” Naruto said. “I’m not sure I could, if I were you. But trying to attack them won’t make it hurt less. Nothing I did made it hurt any less, until... until I found someone new I cared about. I know there are people who care about you, Neji. Right?”

Neji was silent for a moment. Kakashi had shifted his weight, letting up slightly and making it easier for him to breathe. “... Yes.” A flicker of emotion passed over his face. Guilt?

“They wouldn’t want this for you,” Naruto said, utterly certain of it even though he’d never met whoever was on Neji’s mind. No one who cared for him would want him to spend his time furiously trying to hurt the people he thought had hurt him. (Who really had hurt him.)

Neji swallowed. “I know.”

“I... I care about you too!” Naruto said quickly.

“What?” Neji stammered.

“What!” Sasuke demanded.

“I kidnapped you.”

“He kidnapped you!”

“That was shitty of you,” Naruto conceded. “But I don’t think you’re as bad of a person as everyone seems to think you are! I wasn’t very like _me_ , either, after... he died. I forgive you,” he said, pouring into the words all the honesty he could muster, which was a lot.

Neji had nothing to say. Sakura picked up the slack. “So, Sasuke. Do you want him dead or not? Don’t take all day, now.”

“It’s night,” Kakashi pointed out helpfully.

“Dead or not?” Sakura repeated. Naruto thought he noticed something off in her stony voice, a hint of emotion, something unsettled or unbalanced in her tone.

Sasuke’s gaze flittered between Sakura, Neji, and Naruto as he licked his lips. “I—” He looked to Kakashi, who shrugged a shoulder as if to say he didn’t care either way.

“Please.” Naruto jumped to his feet and clasped Sasuke’s hand in his. “Please, Sasuke.”

The silence stretched. Finally Sasuke said, “All right. He lives.” His dark glare made it clear that he was not happy about his own decision.

“Yes!” Naruto’s chest burst with relief, and he threw his arms around Sasuke. “Thank you, thank you.”

“It’s not quite as easy as that,” Kakashi cut in as Sasuke returned the embrace with one arm. “What shall we do with him, now that he’s still alive? Do you want to take him prisoner?”

Naruto grimaced, thinking that that wouldn’t be much better than death.

“No,” Neji rasped. “I—You’ve nothing more to fear from me. I think. I... I... I have erred. I have hurt my own people, my... In countless ways, I have hurt them."

The room was silent, waiting, weighing his words. Even the gunshots sounding from elsewhere in the building had ceased as if to observe respect.

Neji met Naruto's gaze. "No longer, I swear it,” he insisted. “I can live a better life than this.”

* * *

** Sasuke: || **

A knock at the door made Sasuke look up. He had no time to wonder who might be at the door before it opened, revealing Sakura in a rain-spattered coat. An umbrella hung from her hand.

“Naruto, are you ready to go?”

Naruto was on the couch with Suigetsu, who was trying—and largely failing—to teach him the rules of blackjack. “Wait, what do ‘stand’ and ‘hit’ mean again?”

Suigetsu opened his mouth to explain.

“Naruto,” Sakura snapped without malice. “Do you want to see her or not?”

“See whom?” Sasuke asked, feeling somewhat lost.

“Oh—Ayame,” Naruto said. He cocked his head. “Did I not tell you?”

“You did,” Suigetsu said, “but Mr. Finance here was too preoccupied with rubber band costs. It takes a _lot_ of them, you know, to hold all that Uchiha cash.”

Suigetsu wasn’t even joking. The family spent hundreds on rubber bands every month.

“Sorry,” Sasuke said. He loved paying attention to Naruto, drinking in every line and slope of his face, watching the light play over his handsome features, absorbing every sound that was formed from his lips. But sometimes he got caught up in paperwork and ignored everything else around him.

“Don’t be,” Naruto said with a grin. “So—I’m going to visit Ayame. I’ve got Sakura with me, so don’t make a fuss about it, eh?”

“I wouldn’t make a fuss,” Sasuke argued. He pinned Sakura with a glare that she was wholly unaffected by. “Don’t let anything happen.”

Sakura scoffed. “Who do you think I am?”

Naruto tossed his cards onto the table, standing. His throat bobbed as he swallowed nervously, but he looked determined. “I’m ready to go.”

“Then let’s.” Sakura gestured with her umbrella and walked out the door.

“I’ll see you later,” Naruto said. He blew a kiss towards Sasuke, pouted when he didn’t pretend to catch it, and followed Sakura into the hallway.

“Good luck,” Sasuke called. From what Naruto had told him, he knew Ayame meant a lot to him. He hoped this meeting would make Naruto happy.

“Thanks!” Naruto shouted back as he left.

Things had changed greatly since Naruto’s second kidnapping. To nearly everyone’s surprise, Neji Hyuga had actually kept his word and begun to reform the Hyugas’ approach to inter-family politics. While not all was magically well, the Uchihas and the Hyugas had formed a tentative non-aggression agreement and were on the way to creating an even more tentative alliance, largely thanks to the bafflingly strange but undeniably helpful friendship between Neji and Naruto.

Sasuke didn’t very much like it. But he couldn’t ignore the benefits of a cordial relationship with another major family, and it pleased Naruto.

Itachi wouldn’t stop needling him smugly about the unexpected wonders of romantic affection. Sasuke was fed up with it; he and Naruto were _nothing_ like Itachi and Deidara.

Sasuke rifled to the next page in the stack of documents, stifling the soppy smile that had broken across his face at the mere thought of Naruto’s place in his life. Then he realized he didn’t particularly want to stifle it, and so he didn’t. It felt odd, exposed, but—good. It felt good.

When Naruto and Sakura returned nearly three hours later, Naruto looked as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, and a beam of sunlight split his face.

“How did it go?” Sasuke asked. Kakashi had come at some point in the afternoon to discuss profit with Sasuke, and he poked his head out of the kitchen at Naruto and Sakura’s return.

“Good,” Naruto replied, his grin becoming impossibly wider. “Really, really good! I’d thought she would be angry—and she was, ha, but she was really glad to see me.” He threw himself onto the couch. “God, I missed her.”

“There was much hugging and weeping,” Sakura said with amusement.

Sasuke softened when he saw the happiness clear in Naruto’s face, even as a sudden frisson of unease thrummed through his stomach. _Don’t ruin this_ , he thought. But he couldn’t stop himself from asking, “Do you want to go back?”

Naruto sat up, realization coming over him. “Oh! Were you _worried_ about that?” he asked teasingly, though he soon returned to seriousness. “No, I... I don’t think that’s the right place for me to be anymore. I don’t want to leave this behind.”

“Aww,” Suigetsu cooed. Naruto laughed.

Relief settled in Sasuke’s chest, but Naruto hadn’t finished speaking. “Sasuke, I thank God that I met you. There’s no one in the world who has ever made me feel like you do.” From anyone else that would be a line, but from Naruto it simply sounded like the truth. Sasuke could feel his ears burning red.

“Suigetsu—you’re amazing, and loyal, and your jokes positively _slay_ me.”

“Hey!” Suigetsu pumped a triumphant fist.

“Sakura,” Naruto continued, blue eyes sparkling so brightly that not a soul would have the heart to jeer at his fervent monologue. “Thank you so much, again, for saving me! You’re super strong and impressive.”

“Don’t you have a way with words,” Sakura drawled, but a pleased flush dusted her cheeks.

“What about me?” Kakashi pouted theatrically.

Another laugh broke free from Naruto’s mouth. It was as if his chest was bubbling over with it, so full he couldn’t keep it from spilling out over and over again. He was radiant with his delighted, breathless happiness, and Sasuke’s heart thudded helplessly against his ribs.

“You’re amazing too, Kakashi!” Naruto cried, giving an exaggerated round of applause. His eyes crinkled with mirth. “Although you were sort of a bastard for kidnapping me.”

 _I love him_ , Sasuke thought, and the knowledge went crashing through him like a tidal wave. _I love him. I love him._

“Hey,” Kakashi complained, “I paid you, didn’t I?”

Naruto’s voice turned piercingly sincere, his eyes softening. “Yeah. Thanks.” The way he said the word sounded like he was thankful for more than merely the money.

Kakashi clicked his tongue, a crooked smile slanting his mouth. “Then why don’t you put your newly rediscovered talents to good use? Sasuke bought that piano for a reason.”

That reason had been nothing more than to make Naruto smile. And he was smiling now, as he took a seat at the grand piano and opened the lid with gentle, callused fingers.

“What kind of song should I play?” Naruto asked. His eyes scanned the room before lingering on Sasuke.

“What kinds are there?” Sasuke snorted. “A good one, obviously.”

“Every song I play is good!” Naruto protested, indignant.

Sasuke laughed. “I seem to remember a particularly interesting number you played at Kakashi’s birthday party...”

Naruto flushed and rushed to put his hands on the keys. “I’ll show you!”

As he began to play, peals of music sprang from underneath his fingertips, bubbling out to fill the air and bounce off the walls of the room. The cascade of notes rushed through their veins, bright and lively and utterly inescapable in their energy. Sasuke watched the man he loved pour his beautiful liquid heart across the piano that Sasuke had given him, and he could not think of a single thing he wanted more than what he had right now.

“See?” Naruto called out to Sasuke when he finished. “You’ve got to acknowledge my skills now!”

“Yeah,” Sasuke said softly, smiling, chest blooming with something like a symphony. “You showed me.”

**Author's Note:**

> Did I read five dense pages on the history of iron balcony fire escapes and another three on the evolution of elevators, all while doing absolutely zero research on the actual 1920s mafia? Yes. Yes I did.
> 
> P.S. I heard that Al Capone did actually have to blow hilarious amounts of money on rubber bands to hold his cash and I couldn't resist adding that in.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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